Communicating with Emotional Intelligence

Table of Contents

Introduction

Learning Outcomes

Module Topics

Intrapersonal Communication for Leaders

Interpersonal Communication Principles

Conflict Management

Practical Activity

Required Reading

Additional Resources

1 Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program

Introduction

Hello and welcome to Communicating with Emotional Intelligence.

In this module, we explore communication from an ‘intrapersonal’ perspective by looking at our internal thinking and how this influences our leadership. Understanding your internal dialogue, in turn, helps you with interpersonal communication and your ability to work with emotional intelligence.

Please Note:There are a number of weblinks throughout this module which are current at the time of publication, if any are broken or fail to open,please advise your Program Coordinator or post a message to the Academic Leaders’ Café in Blackboard in the forum titled, ‘Help us to help you!’ Thank you.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion participants will:

  • Develop strategies to monitor self-talk and its influence on personal performance.
  • Use a range of processes to reframe and manage interpersonal conflict.
  • Recognise key communication competencies for leadership.

Module Topics

This module looks at Emotional Intelligenceandits relationship to self-talk and interpersonal communication, including conflict management.

Thetopicsto be covered are:

Intrapersonal Communication for Leaders

  • Managing Negative Self-Talk – Part 1.
  • Managing Negative Self-Talk – Part 2.
  • Gaining Control of Our Feelings.
  • The House of Change.
  • Faulty Thinking.
  • A Model of Change.

Interpersonal Communication Principles

  • Introduction.
  • The Johari Window.
  • Effective Listening.
  • The Feedback Process: Obtaining Information.
  • Non-Verbal Messages.

Conflict Management

  • Introduction.
  • Mapping Strategy.
  • Communication in Conflict Situations - Assertiveness.
  • The Purple Rhinoceros Head.

Let’s look at each one in detail.

Intrapersonal Communication for Leaders

Managing Negative Self-talk – Part 1

Mark Twain said, "I have had a great many troubles in my life, and most never happened." There is great wisdom in this quotation with respect to self-talk as it illustrates that our own thinking can at times be our own worst enemy.

What do we mean by negative self-talk? Stop for a moment and do nothing for about 20 seconds. Can you hear a little voice in your head talking to you? Probably not, but you probably noticed that you had thoughts running through your head. These are examples of self-talk and sometimes they can be positive, and sometimes they can be negative. The best way to illustrate an example of self-talk (in this case negative self-talk) is to provide an example.

Situation:Susan is aCourse Coordinator (CC) and is packing up to leave to go home and pick up her child from day care. A student comes to her office door and asks if they can speak to her about their unit grade. Susaninforms the student thatshe is about to leave and thatthe studentwill need to make an appointmentduring office hours. The student gets angry and says "I can't wait until Wednesday; I want to talk about this grade I received now!"Susan curbs her anger and agrees to see the student for a short time. She advises the student if it is going to take longer than 5 minutes they will haveto reschedule.

What might be percolating through Susan's mind....?

Inner Thoughts:"I just want to go home. I have worked hard all day. How darehespeak tome like that! What does he think I do here all day...wait to serve him? Doesn't he realise I have so much on! I am the person who is right here, he is wrong for barging into my office and demanding my time. You have no right to be rude,you should always be polite and respectful and not hurt people's feelings."

Feelings: More than likely there would be some feelings ofirritation fuelled by this negative self talk ("how am I going to get thisstudent out of my office"), irritation and anger, perhaps even a bit of fear.

You may feel in reading this example thatSusan is right and has every reason to feel the way she does. Well yes, and no. The feelings are legitimate but you can see how holding on to these feelings reduces theCourse Coordinator'spersonal effectiveness, power and well being. What theCC needs to do is to overcome the negative feelings and to eliminate any irrational thoughts or beliefs about this experience. For example, theCC feels that all people should be polite and respectful. While a lovely concept, it is irrational in that people aren't always polite and respectful. To get upset and have negative feelings as a result of what somebody else 'should have done', makes you the victim in this situation.

TheCC needs to let go of judgements, feelings, attitudes and expectations, and basically act appropriately in terms of what is best for theCC, the student, and the organisation. Otherwise, getting caught up in a cycle of negative self-talk reduces personal effectiveness and outcomes. This concept is illustrated in the following diagram from Grant & Green (2001, 90).

Managing Negative Self-talk - Part 2

Susan and ourselves can develop our self-talk management skills so that we become more competent in ourrole as aCourse Coordinator. We do this bybeing more proactive with respect to identifying negative thoughts that reduce our effectiveness, and by replacing them with more positive thoughts.

By actively intervening in the development of your self-image, you can influence, in a positive way, how you deal with situations. It requires work, however, and you must choose to participate in this transformation. Self-awareness is necessary as you must have the ability to reflect upon situations in a way that enables you to identify, explore and manage your self-talk. This was addressed in Goleman's (1995) emotional intelligence model. Self-awareness is the first component. Managing negative self-talk is a key component of emotional intelligence and an important leadership skill.

Negative self-talk usually develops over years as a result of experiences in our life, eg.failures, criticisms etc. Grant & Green (2001) provide a comprehensive review of negative self-talk. Their ideas are summarised in the following paragraphs.

At our highest level of consciousness we are quite aware of what we say to ourselves, eg. "I'm a great cook, I'mnot very goodat mathematics."At the next level is automatic self-talk. Normally we are not aware of what is going on at this level but every now and then these thoughts surface into our consciousness. We can train ourselves to become more aware of these thoughts. For example, you may have to give a presentation at a meeting and thoughts that may pop into your head now and then are, "I'm going to do a terrible job", "I'm going to forget important things". Usually there are a series of thoughts that occur together as well. These negative thoughts come from deep underlying beliefs we have about ourselves which are normally subconscious and are linked very closely to our world view.For example:

  • "I'm not good enough"
  • "Life is so unfair and hard"
  • "Its important that peoplelike me"
  • "Nobody respects me"
  • "I'm not very smart".

By holding on to these self-limiting beliefs as ‘truths’you can be sure that you will never be good enough, life will be hard,nobody will like you, nobody will respect you! This is the self-fulfilling prophecy in action and it is these thoughts that are not in our immediate awareness that exert the greatest and most consistent influence on our behaviour!!!!

Negative self-talk often emerges because we have preconceived notions or expectations of how things should or must be. For example, self-fulfilling prophecies about impending potential negative consequencesthat lead us to actually create the prophecy in the end. In other situations we jump to incorrect conclusions or distort reality through the faulty processing of our perceptions. What we believe exists, in fact, doesn't exist at all. Nonetheless, our version of reality drives the way we think and act. This is similar to distorting the real evidence. For many, we already have a tendency to dwell on negative thoughts or believe that people are being negative. This is the 'glass is half empty' perspective. We can change faulty thinking and reduce stress by changing our thoughts and self-talk(our internal communication). Replacing them with rational and positive thoughts increases our personal effectiveness and has been shown to stimulate the neurological centres in the amygdala and left prefrontal cortex of the brain, the centres responsible for 'good feelings' (Goleman, Boyatzis, McKee, 2001).

Gaining Control of Our Feelings

In order to become more masterful in managing our self-talk we need to gain better control of our feelings, the second part of Goleman's (1995) emotional intelligence model. Dealing effectively with academic staff, professional staff and students can be difficult if your negative feelings get in the way. It may feel impossible. Believe it or not, you choose your feelings just like you choose your behaviour. Cognitive behaviourists state that our beliefs influence how we feel and behave, rather than the actual events. (Zeus and Skiffington, 2000)

Events by themselves are just events (think about this statement for a while!)

How we evaluate and interpret these events, however, determines our response. For example, all that happened in our example is that a student was rude and demanded some of the Course Coordinator's time. Everything else theCourse Coordinator'felt' was created by their own thinking about the event.

Figure 1

The above diagram illustrates this concept further. When an event takes place we interpret it with our senses. We generate a set of beliefs about what has happened and this influences our thoughts. Our emotions and feelings kick in at this point and influence our reaction or behaviour to the situation. This emotional response occurs quickly and stems from the limbic system in our brain, the more primitive but more immediate emotional response centre. If we can intervene at the 'thought' box, using our neocortex, which is the more recent evolutionary aspect of our brain, and interpret the event in a more positive and rational manner, the negative emotions that were generated initially by the limbic system can be altered. A more productive response with more powerful and effective reaction behaviour ensues.

If our thoughts or negative self-talk limit or sabotage our reaction, they will create a blockage towards dealing with situations productively. If you have ever heard of the term, 'self fulfilling prophecy', it stems from negative self-talk. If you believe that you are going to fail, you probably will. If you believe it is going to be too difficult, it probably will.

The House of Change

In order to heighten your leadership effectiveness as a Course Coordinator, the art of managing your self-talk is largely about getting your house in order. This is illustrated in the diagram by Grant & Green (2001). Here you can see the connection between your emotions (feelings), images (thoughts) and beliefs. These drive your behaviour in specific situations. When considered collectively, they are the underlying factors that allow or prevent you from reaching your goals. So, managing your self-talk is in essence like ‘putting your house in order’. Once you can do this, reaching your goals aremore likely to result. How can we apply The House of Change to Susan's predicament? By focussing on the negative thoughts and monitoring one's emotional state, looking at the situation and best behaviour, a positive goal can be attained.Susan must recognise the negative thoughts she is having (this student is rude and shouldn't behave like that) and the concommitant emotional state (frustration) and change them. She wants to leave, so if she is more pleasant she will calm the student down and manage the situation better. While it would be nice if all students were pleasant and understanding, this is not reality, so it is in Susan's best interests to smile, ask the student some questions, and appease their concerns.

The example of the student and the Course Coordinator highlights a key component of negative self-talk, that is, faulty thinking. Zeus and Skiffington (2000, 207) describe several styles of faulty thinking that influence self-talk. See if you can recognise which ones had gripped Susan our Course Coordinator.

  • Black and white thinking, which excludes any grey areas and seriously limits our interpretations and options.
  • Setting unrealistic expectations and thereby setting ourselves up for disappointment and failure.
  • Selective thinking, such as only thinking about the negative aspects of a situation rather than looking at it from all sides.
  • Catastrophising, such as always thinking of the worst possible scenario.
  • Mistaking feelings for facts.
  • Minimising successes and maximising failures.

Some of the irrational thoughts that we have that influence the generation of negativeself-talk and feelingsare described in Figure 2 below. Can you identify any of these irrational thoughts that influence your own self-talk?

You may not agree that they are irrational, but if you sit down and really think about them, they are. For example, does everyone have to love/like you? Are mistakes really terrible? Think of all the stress you could eliminate in your role as Course Coordinator if you could release some of these irrational thoughts that cause negative self-talk which then free you to look at the situation with a more rational lense.

Figure 2

In order to manage your feelings more effectively you need to differentiate between wanted and unwanted feelings. Wanted feelings help you deal effectively with the situation and to act constructively. Unwanted feelings get in the way, make it difficult to think clearly and make difficult situations worse. You also have to convince yourself that you alone decide what you feel. Once you have this understanding, you can start to change the way you think to create more wanted feelings. Look at the irrational thoughts you are having and change them. Select more positive emotions to feel. Interrupt some of your old patterns of behaviour or reflexes by recognising that you have a choice in how you feel. Remember, 'feelings' don't solve problems, 'actions' do.

Faulty Thinking

Albert Ellis did a substantial amount of work on cognitive behaviour and the link to thinking systems. Theitemsbelow illustrate some features of faulty thinking adapted from thework of Ellis (1995).

Again, when examining your own self-talk see how often you apply these faulty cognitive processes. Again, what examples can you point to in our Course Coordinator example?

  • Exaggeration: generalise from one or two aspects or qualities about a situation or person into a totally negative judgement.
  • Overgeneralisation: jump to a conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens you expect it to happen over and over again.
  • Shoulds/Musts: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break your rules anger you or you feel guilty if you break your own rules.
  • Having to be right: Continually concerned to prove that your actions and opinions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate that you are right.
  • Catastrophising: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start to say 'what ifs' to yourself.
  • Awfulizing: if something doesn't go the way you expected you feel it's absolutely awful and tell yourself that you can't stand it.
  • Self-blaming: you blame yourself for every problem or set-back and mentally put yourself down.
  • Mind-reading: you assume you know what other people are thinking and feeling without their saying so. In particular, you think you know exactly how people are feeling towards you.
  • Fallacy of fairness: you assume you know what is fair and what is not and you feel resentful if other people don't agree.

One way of being in more control of your negative and delimiting self-talk is to actively manage your thoughts. This is now being called, ‘mindfulness’ in the psychological literature. Mindfulness is being aware of one’s thoughts, actions and motivations. These mindfulness strategies come from the area of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and are used in many counselling situations to help people overcome anxiety and depression but they can equally be applied to healthy functional individuals to improve their leadership performance, for example. The steps to actively managing your self-talk and challenging your beliefs seem quite simple. HOWEVER, it is not as easy as you think and takes a lot of PRACTICE.

A Model of Change

With this background on negative self-talk and faulty thinking,you should find now that it ispossible to actively manage thought processes in a more positive manner. The A - F Model for Challenging Beliefs (Zeus and Skiffington, 2002, 187) is a very useful framework for working through negative thoughts and feelings that interfere with your effectiveness as a Course Coordinator.The example of the CC and the Student is used here as an example.

A: Activating event or situation: student demands to see CC outside of office hours.

B:Self limiting beliefs: I want to be liked by everyone, I can't stand conflict, people should not be rude, and students must respect authority......